Frustrated

My sewing machine (Bernina 570) has been giving me a few problems lately. I get it serviced every year at the end of the year - usually taking it in during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. But I’ll be taking it in early this year. For the past several months, the automatic thread cutter has been only cutting the top thread and leaving the bobbin thread uncut. When I start to sew again, it tangles. So, I’ve been using a leader or ender (more precisely, a “thread rabbit”) whenever I can to avoid cutting the thread. Ok, a pain-in-the-butt workaround, but not really a big deal. But every once in a while, the machine stops and the message states the bobbin is empty. I got suckered into checking it the first couple times, but I learned that if it does that when I know darn well the bobbin is full, I just press the ‘X’ to close out the screen and can continue sewing. It rarely happened, so I forgot about it until yesterday.

The Fan of the Library quilt top was finished, and I pin basted it on Thursday in order to quilt it myself so I could practice quilting feathers. On Friday, I got the first block done and was pleased enough with the feathers for a first effort.

With a little more practice, it would be easy to make those feathers fluffier and get the two sides to meet in the top of the fan arc, eliminating the need to sew a curl there. OK. I can do this. On to the second fan. That’s when my machine decided that the bobbin thread was empty. I cleared the message, continued trying to stitch the second fan, got another three seconds of stitching in and Stop! Bobbin empty message again. After a few (like a dozen) more of these stops and error messages, I gave up. I switched from my free-motion foot to my walking foot and the same thing happened.  In order to preserve my sanity, to say nothing of my machine and the nearby window, I turned it off and walked away. 

Today I will try to sew something - anything with my regular machine quarter inch foot. Once again I’ll clean and re-thread the machine as I’d done before starting the quilting. Depending on how the machine behaves, it will either go in today for servicing (if it’s not sewing at all) or next Saturday after our Quilts for Kids workshop, which will be at the same store where I get my machine serviced. In the meantime, Ruby said she can finish the quilting (not feathers, but at least something) on her longarm. She’ll take it with her when she comes to “Church of Bernina” on Sunday and return it on Wednesday. I have a backup machine to use whenever I need to, and when the Bernina returns from servicing, I can try again with feathers on another quilt top. And I will definitely try again.

But, everything was fine for the earlier part of the week through Thursday, and I got lots sewn. 

Here are three Rolling Stone blocks that I sewed in purple, my mistaken Color of the Month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. The block on the top right is magenta, not wine-colored as it appears. Purples  are problematic for my iPhone. 

They will finish at 12”. Next I sewed some Hollow Nine blocks with 2.5” squares (6” finished):

And I webbed the Unicorn quilt. That white print in the top has tossed unicorn heads in blue-purple and red-purple, so I took that as license to mix all the matching purple shades and tints in the pieced blocks. 

It’s not exactly “cute”, although it is nicer and brighter in person. The top measures about 40x50”. The best part is that it ate up a lot of older purple scraps on the front and the pieced back. My purple scrap bin is smaller than my other colors, and now the remaining scraps all fit into it. Yesssss! 

And I had another little incident on Thursday. I was walking up to the clubhouse, along a tree-lined street, when a tree branch broke and fell down about 12’ in front of me. It wasn’t a huge branch, and even if I’d been hit, I don’t think it would’ve done much except scare the bejeebers out of me and possibly knock off my sunglasses. But still. I backed up a bit and took a picture - the branch is in the road by the bench and tree in the middle of the photo. 

I dragged the branch out of the street and onto the grass and called one of our groundskeepers. And then I finished walking to the clubhouse (the building in shadow behind the trees) and played cards all afternoon with my friends. 

All in all, it was a good week. One of the highlights was taking a 3.5-mile walk with a friend (probably a bit much for my first serious post-surgical walk), but nothing hurts except the ol’ back! And my hips. And ….  linking up to Scrappy Saturday. Life is good!

Drive-By Post!

There’s not much to report here this week in the way of any news, creative or otherwise. It’s just been crazy and busy - and I developed “pink eye” (conjunctivitis) and an infected tear duct that is finally clearing up with meds. So, minimal sewing and reading for me. But still - housework, yardwork, meetings and appointments. But I do have two pictures to share.

We were invited over to Bruce’s ex-wife’s place for a small family gathering to say goodbye to grandson Deacon (tallest guy in back row), who was leaving on a 2-year mission the next day for his church. He will be in the Kansas City mission.

Back row: Abbie, Gunner (the redhead!) and Deacon - daughter Emily’s kids
Front row (daughter Stacy’s kids): Remi, Oakley, Bear, Evie and Hunter

I sewed another batch of 15 string blocks in purple, but I don’t have a picture. Strings is strings, eh? It’s comfort sewing for me, and I just turn on some music and float away to a happy place. 

The Fan of the Library quilt is now a completed top measuring something like 55x66. Don’t quote me on that. Once it’s quilted, I’ll have the official numbers. I also pieced a backing. 

Now, since I want to quilt this one myself, I have to pin baste it and make some quilting design decisions. I’d like to practice some feathers on it after watching Angela Walter’s feather quilting series on her YouTube channel. Wish me luck.

Today I’m off to work awhile in the courtyard. I've got weeds to hoe, roses to deadhead and fertilizing to do. I may even repot some of my houseplants that need it. And then - sewing all afternoon. At least, that’s the plan. There may also be a Barnes & Noble coffee date in the afternoon. life is good!

Linking to Scrappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

Continuing With Purple

Well, I jumped the gun in starting my Rainbow Scrap Challenge for August with purple, because Angela selected yellow instead. But she also said if we’d started with purple, we could continue with it and just do yellow next month. So that’s what I’m doing!

Let’s start with the 6.5” string blocks. This first batch was these dark purple strings. They’re not so exciting, so I didn’t unpin this set of 15 that will go to our local chapter of Quilts for Kids. 

Then I wanted to do a set of 15 light lavender blocks, and I had enough of the center strips with the plusses on them to do that, and managed to eke out the whole set. I did lay these out on one of my sewing room tables, but the lighting sure affects the color. Obviously, the window is to the right, so those blocks on the right are getting the most natural light. The truest colored blocks are in the second column from the right. 

I have more purple strings, and I’ll get to those later in the month.

Next I finished sewing the blocks for my friend Joan who moved back to Massachusetts. It looks very similar to the one I finished last spring for our grandson’s wedding, but this one is just 12 blocks (instead of 20) and measures 48x64”. It’s pinned sideways (wonkily) because my design board is too high for me, yet not long enough. 

I had two quilt finishes this week because my friend Ruby brought them back after quilting them. These will go to Quilts for Kids (QFK), and both are larger than the small ones that we make with a single width of fabric for the backing. I got them squared up (which is going to be hard to believe when you see the second quilt), bound and labeled. 

This first one is the light and dark potato chip quilt made exclusively with pieces that were cut 2.5x4.5”. I am absolutely having a great time working with this shape lately! I photographed this quilt sideways, then flipped it vertically. It measures 48x60”.

Here’s a close-up of the quilting.

The backing is this sturdy red plaid that Ruby bought at an estate sale for us to use for our QFK quilts. There were  about 10-12 pieces, with probably 30 yards or more total. Expect to see a lot of this fabric used as backings! 

This next quilt was difficult for me to photograph, so I laid it out on the kitchen island. The quilt measures 48x61”. 

And I decided to do what quilter Bonnie Hunter does and piece the back with matching scraps. Gotta use up as much as I can of the “Dang, that’s ugly!” scraps and small yardage pieces. I also used the leftover blocks to get them gone!

This is a close-up of the curly quilting. 

The Library Quilt, as I’m calling it (but “Fan of the Library will be its official name) saw a lot of good progress. In the next picture, the side borders are just pinned up and the top and bottom borders aren’t shown. Also, some of the lower horizontal seams aren’t stitched.

Those 12 fan blocks were given to me by our QFK chapter leaders. We get a lot of donated blocks and fabric, so they passed these on to me to “do something with.” I had 2 yards of this lovely fabric depicting children’s books with vintage, colorful covers and they were perfect together.  I’m absolutely loving the warm, rich colors! 

Oh, the layout came about as an accident. I had originally intended to have all the fan blocks facing one direction. But when I finished piecing the first row of three, I realized I’d already messed up. I hate ripping blocks apart, so I made an executive decision (design choice) to alternate double and single fans. And I rather like it! I think the double fans look like a book lying open with its pages fanned out. 

All is well here, but the heat is really plucking my last nerve. My garden is half crispy, despite daily watering - and deep soaking the tree. I hope this type of heat doesn’t become the norm. I may have to start planting cacti! Cousin Kim and her daughter Sarah came over on Wednesday and the three of us went swimming at the clubhouse. Bruce didn’t have any interest in joining us. He jokes that with only one arm, he just swims in circles! My granddaughter London got her learner's permit this week. Her mom sent me a video of London driving in a church parking lot. I can remember doing the same thing with London’s dad! It seems like just last month! 

I hope you have a great week and stay cool (or warm, depending on where you are) and safe! Sharing this post also with OH SCRAP! 

Life is good.

I’m Guessing - Purple?

Hi friends. It’s the start of a new month (or will be in a few hours as I’m writing this in the evening of July 31). A new month means a new color of the month for us “Rainbow Scrapettes”  - followers of and participants in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Hostess Angela has a weekly Scrappy Saturday post where we come together to show our progress. The announcement of a new color will be in her blog post on Saturday, but I took a hint from one of her blog pictures last week and decided to take a chance on purple for August. I guess we’ll find out soon enough if I guessed correctly. 

Here are four Gameboard blocks that will finish at 8”. 

I wish I’d thought to gather up all my Gameboard blocks made so far this year and snap a photo. But it’s late and dark now, and photos without natural light in my sewing room are awful. So I’ll do that next month for sure.

The only other thing I sewed this week were three more big potato chip blocks for my friend Joan’s quilt. Here are all six together. I’m halfway done with these.

Not much was accomplished on the sewing front for me this past week. I was too busy with other things, and I don’t pivot from one thing to another quickly. Especially if there’s coffee and a good book nearby! 

We had contractors here to start measuring and giving us bids on some remodeling we’re planning (more on that as it develops), a termite inspection (done by the HOA and we’re termite-free), another routine test and doctor visit for Bruce at the VA up in Salt Lake (all is well), a luncheon and shopping with a friend, and I did some clothes shopping last weekend. I’ve decided I detest clothes shopping. I used to love it when I was younger and more energetic, but now it’s just a chore. Sheesh, I sound like a grumpy old woman! Truly, I’m not!!

So, for Saturday, we’re going to the Farmer’s Market to scout for peaches, tomatoes (we’re jonesing for some BLT sandwiches) and maybe some cheap perennial plants for the courtyard. Then we head up to Salt Lake City to a showroom to begin picking out floorings, cabinets, knobs, fireplace materials and Stuff. And I have to finish writing the HOA newsletter for August and get that published to our portal. But I’d rather be busy than bored! And come Sunday, it’ll be another Church of Bernina sewing day in my sewing room, so there’s that. I can’t wait! Life is good. 

Edited to add: Arrrgh!  The color of the month for August for the RSC is YELLOW!! (It’s a good thing I don’t play the lottery, eh?!). Well, I’ll put away my purple, but I have a great head start for next month!

Two More Finishes and Big Tree Removal

I’ve got a long and picture-heavy post for you today, so sit back and relax. It’s been one crazy week (in a good way), and I remembered to snap some photos along the way.

My first quilt finish of the week was this quilt made with some of the 2.5”-width strips that I was given by our Quilts for Kids chapter. I decided that I would make a few quilts that are larger than the baby sizes so we could address the needs of some older kids. This is one of those quilts, and it finished at 48x60”. 

My friend Ruby quilted it in what we call a square stipple. I’m sure it has a more official name, but who knows (or cares)? 

The backing was an old shirting print, so the whole thing should be suitable for either gender. 

Then there was this little Strippie quilt that was a collaborative project again. The fabric came from my stash, and I cut it out and drew out a pattern for Kim. Kim sewed it for me (my “stunt sewer”), then Ruby Quilted it and I bound it. And yes, we realized too late that the top half was sewed wrong. The red and navy section was supposed to be next to the center large stars. Oh well, it’s not going to be changed now!

This “All Stars” Strippie measures 40x47”.

My friend Kris from Weight Watchers asked me to quilt another table topper for her, which I happily agreed to. This was a pattern from one of the quilt stores on the Utah Shop Hop a couple years ago.

I typically put more effort into quilting personal and friends’ things than I do for donation quilts. My quilting is done on my Bernina 570 domestic machine. 

I’ve been watching and practicing along with Angela Walters’ new Feathers quilting series on YouTube, and I’m learning a lot. Angela is one of the most talented and recognized quilters in the industry. And while I only incorporated some “half feathers” in the outer borders of this table topper, the class gave me the impetus to search for other designs, study, practice and gain more confidence in trying new things. 

In the center area, you can see some dot-to-dot quilting in the squares and half-square triangles. 

In the four white corners I did my variation of “E’s and 3’s”. 

The outer border was the aforementioned half feathers (or half hearts). 

I’ll return it to Kris on Tuesday and I hope she likes it. We’re also going out to lunch, so that will be fun.

The final nine blocks of the “Library” quilt - so named because of the book print fabric for the sashing and borders - were appliquéd to their background blocks. I’ll begin the assembly on Monday. Ish. Everything is already cut and waiting to go, but top assembly is my least favorite part of the process…

Last Monday, one of my sweet friends here in the condos, Joan, moved away. She sold her condo and moved back to Massachusetts to be near her five daughters. Joan is the one who gave me her outdoor planter (shown empty last week and newly planted, later in this post). She loves blue, so I’m going to surprise her with a blue and white quilt. It will be nearly identical to the wedding quilt I recently made my grandson and his bride. The fabrics are different, but the color scheme is basically the same. 

Joan’s quilt will be smaller than the first one I made. These blocks finish at 16”, and will be set 3x4 for an approximate 48x64” size. The blues in this block are the closest I came to sewing aqua this week for July’s color of the month in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

And speaking of Joan, here is the planter she gifted me. I planted it last weekend (sorry for the lousy shady photo) and will have to tweak it later today because the soil has settled. But I love it!

So the reason I was out early in the morning taking pictures while the courtyard was still shaded is because I wanted to get some “before” photos. We learned on Monday night that the big tree in front of our condo was being removed on Thursday. While we’ve known for over a year that it needed to be done because its roots were destroying our neighbor’s driveway and courtyard, it was still heartbreaking. Obviously, someone planted the wrong tree 40 years ago, because honey locusts are shallow-rooted and not good for planting in parkways and such. 

Above: the tree and our condo at 9:15am.  Below: our front gate with bunting and shade from the big tree. The smaller tree in our courtyard, a Japanese maple, is already stressed from the late spring freeze and now scorching hot summer. I’ve been watering it copiously and giving it iron treatments, but it is a tree that thrives best with protection. I’m afraid we may not be able to save it when it doesn’t have the bigger tree to protect it. Time will tell. 

Here’s a “before” panoramic shot of our courtyard with the morning shade

The felling begins.

They really made quick work of it, and were very professional. Below: Still Life with Chainsaw.

Now in the courtyard there’s bright sun where there was once deep shade. Later that evening, I transplanted the three brunnera plants to the clubhouse, back to deep shade.

We’ll have the arborists out in September to trim the dead branches out of the maple and give it a good overall pruning. That will give it the best chance for survival going forward. 

At 11:15 am, there was no sign of the tree (or the arborists for that matter). 

The rest of my week can be summarized in a few sentences. Continued with my knee and overall fitness exercises; played cards (Hand and Foot) at the clubhouse on Thursday afternoon; State Holiday (Pioneer Day - statehood) on Friday - didn’t do anything except grocery shopping and sewing. Life is good. 

Have a great week friends!

Graduation!

Well, it’s not an exciting graduation, like a grandkid graduating from high school or anything, but I did make it through all my physical therapy sessions and “graduated” from that. I got a hug from both physical therapist Mark and his wife Laura, and I brought them some homemade raspberry jam as a thank you.  I’ll be continuing the home version of my exercises as well as adding some simple exercises to strengthen my core, promote balance and doing some light upper body weight training. I have everything I need except some small weights and a timer, which will arrive tomorrow. I’m excited!

It was another busy week, with a big summer HOA BBQ here at the condos on Wednesday evening. I was on the team to help pull that off, and between set-up, food prep and cleaning up (plus I did the signage and helped transport our most elderly attendees), it was hectic. But what a fun time, even though I may or may not have had three cookies! 

On Friday I made up for eating cookies when my friend Joan, who is moving back to Massachusetts, gifted me her outdoor raised planter. In her courtyard I shoveled out the soil and wheelbarrowed it to our place. Then I went back and we loaded the planter into my SUV. I set the planter up at home and re-shoveled the soil back in. All of that was done before 10am to avoid the heat (although I did work up a sweat and was a filthy mess). But it was fun, and it was great to feel strong and able-bodied again! Here’s the planter. I do plan to visit some garden centers or big box stores to see what’s on clearance. I just want some color (and more soil) in there for the next three months!

I’ve been terrible at sharing garden pictures this year. I planted only a few pots and this vertical garden before my mid-May knee replacement, and just had Bruce watering them while I was unable to work in the yard. 

I never got pictures of the lilies blooming, and the recent record-breaking heat absolutely fried my hydrangeas. I didn’t plant any new shrubs or perennials this year because we’ve been asked to conserve water (and, again, the knee surgery). Mostly these days I’ve been babying my Japanese maple, giving it extra water and iron treatments. Poor thing. The top of the leaf canopy froze and defoliated after a late freeze this spring, and now the scorching heat has it gasping for water! I’m afraid it will be toast when the huge honey locust tree outside our courtyard in the common area is removed this winter - it’s heaving sidewalks and the neighbor’s driveway. The bigger tree provides protection for our Japanese maple, which is typically an understory tree. 

But let’s talk about sewing which is why, I’m sure, you’re here.

July is the month of aqua, teal, and turquoise - and all their blue-green and green-blue variations -  in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge group. 

First up are the two gameboard blocks I sewed, which will finish in a quilt at 8”.

And we can’t forget the Rolling Stone blocks. Only two of those as well. I love these blocks! 

And finally some crumb blocks (6.5”). I had a few on hand and hoped to finish additional blocks to round out a set of 15, but the scraps didn’t stretch that far. So these 7 blocks will join the others and wait until aqua month in 2027 to recruit more friends for a set.

My friend Ruby quilted two more little quilts for me to bind for Quilts for Kids, so I do have two finishes to share once again. First up is this turtle-themed Strippie. After I pulled the fabric and cut the kit, Cousin Kim sewed it up (we joke and call her my “stunt sewist” as we try to churn out lots of these Strippie quilts from my stash). Then Ruby quilts them and I bind and label them. 

The Turtles quilt isn’t all that exciting, but I’m sure there’s a kid who will love the turtles.

The colors are truest on the above photo and the backing photo, below. This little number finished at 39.5 x 45.5”.

Ruby quilted leaves on it, but we think they rather look like they could be patterned turtle shells. 

The second finish was inspired by three cute elephant fat quarters that Ruby gave me from a yard sale find. I had to design something around that amount of fabric, and came up with this. The solid pinks and yellows are pastels, although the camera distorts their intensity. I’ve tried to color-correct it as best I can.

The Pink Ellies quilt measures 40x46”. I’ve got more FQs of this print in a blue and yellow colorway, but there are 4 FQ’s of those. I’ll tackle those later this summer.

Once those little quilts were done and dusted, I could begin working on the fan blocks that were given to me with the Quilts for Kids scraps to “do something with”. See the post here where I first showed them. I call them fan blocks because someone just sewed blades together, not sewing the tops to make a point as for Dresden blades. I had to add another blade to each block to cover at least 90 degrees of a square block.  

Anyway, I found a medium brown fabric on which to appliqué them. The background squares are cut 14x14” (the largest size I could get from a width-of-fabric cut) and I appliquéd the first 3 (of 12) this week. The fans were fit over the corners of the background square, then the outside blades in each block were trimmed to fit. I’m using a blanket stitch on my machine to appliqué down the fans and the inner circle.

I’ve been excited to play with these because the colors go perfectly with the 2-yard cut of book fabric I have. I was originally thinking I’d use the fabric for a backing, but instead I’ll use it for wide borders to bring the 3x4 block setting up to something over 50x60”. That size and these colors will be better suited for an older kid quilt. 

This will be my primary project to work on in the coming week.

Today I need to do some grocery shopping, and then I’ll visit some big box stores to see what kind of flowers (or herbs?) to plant in the new planter. Perhaps next year I can rig up some drip irrigation, but for now the planter will be hand watered. 

Is anyone else watching the new Little House on the Prairie series on Netflix? I absolutely loved those books as a girl. We are really enjoying it, and I find myself thinking and daydreaming about the Ingalls family and their adventures, just as I did 60 years ago! 

Have a great week!